Winter Hill now provides a home for area nonprofits

Oct. 12, 2012

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In anticipation of their move to Winter Hill and as part of what they hope will be an annual tradition, last November the staff of the Garden Conservancy planted 1,000 daffodil bulbs on the grounds. They were a gift from White Flower Farm. Here's how they looked in April. / Garden Conservancy

A view of Winter Hill in Garrison. The historic old mansion has been converted into a Hudson Valley cultural center, with office space for three prestigioius nonprofits: the Garden Conservancy, the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival and the Hudson Highlands Land Trust. / Photos: Joe Larese/The Journal News

A LITTLE HISTORY

The Tudor Revival mansion was originally built for the Rev. Walter Thompson, the rector of the nearby St. Philip’s Church in Garrison. The Thompsons and their five children moved into the new house in 1891. In contrast to the grander Gothic Revival style of mansions like Lyndhurst in Tarrytown, the Tudor Revival style reflects the more modest massing, half-timbering, overhangs and other features of English architecture of the 1500s. The Thompsons’ house is a relatively early example of this style in America. In 1939, the house became a residence for the Sisters of the Good Shepherd, who operated the nearby Villa Loretto home for troubled young women. After that, it was used as a retirement home for Christian Brothers of the Christian Schools for a few years. In 1979, it was established as the Nazareth Life Center, a home for unwed mothers, and in 1982 the house and carriage house (now a private home) were added to the National Register of Historic Places.

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For some 30 years, most people in Garrison have known the historic hilltop property now called Winter Hill as the Nazareth Life Center, a home for unwed mothers.

The hill has also been known all over town for its terrific sledding. Generations of youngsters have gathered there after big snowstorms to take advantage of the long slope down to Snake Hill Road. (And actually that’s the source of the new Winter Hill name.)

When the property came on the market a couple of years ago, many in town were concerned about the potential for small-scale housing development on the site.

“A lot of conservation-minded people were worried about what might have happened,” says Chris Buck, a local philanthropist who led the charge to buy the property and turn it into a cultural center and office space for nonprofits. “The property could have been bought by a developer really easily.”

“The first thought was let’s preserve it,” says Buck, who serves on the board of the Hudson Highlands Land Trust, which in May became the first new tenant in the renovated Tudor Revival mansion. “First and foremost, we didn’t want it to fall into the hands of an aggressive developer.”

With the property in hand, Buck turned to Walter Heitmann, a preservation-minded general contractor who had helped rebuild a barn on his Garrison property. And so began an intense 18-month gut rehab that has transformed a rather drab and tired old house into a beautiful and wonderfully stylish new office building for three local nonprofits, with shared public space on the first floor.

In mid-May, the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival took over most of the new basement for its props and costumes, giving it costume-finishing and fitting space for the first time. For 26 years, the festival has been producing critically acclaimed Shakespeare plays on the nearby grounds of Boscobel, and now they have everything they need in one place and close at hand.

Over a weekend in late August, the Garden Conservancy, which was founded in Cold Spring in 1989 by renowned plantsman Frank Cabot, moved into the the top two floors of the four-level, 8,600-square-foot building. For the last 13 years, it had been making do with two separate offices in Cold Spring.

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On Sunday, Oct. 14, the three new tenants are hosting an open house and reception for close friends and family to celebrate their good fortune and show off their new digs to supporters and board members.

“I couldn’t be happier with the space and how it came out,” says Antonia Adezio, president of the Garden Conservancy, which has been looking for new space for years.

“Everything we looked into had a real investment component,” says Adezio, who has been splitting her time between the New York and the West Coast offices and is stepping down at the end of the year to live full time in the Bay Area.

“We were very reluctant to make that commitment. We thought it best to put our money into our gardens and not our office space.”

“It feels like a perfect match for us,” adds Laura Palmer, director of the Garden Conservancy’s Open Days Program, who now has a smart little office under the eaves on the third floor.

“It’s so much in alignment with what the Garden Conservancy does — preserving great spaces and opening them to the public.”

From the beginning, historic preservation of the existing structure, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, was key. “When you inherit a building like this, you have a certain obligation to preserve as much as you can,” Buck says.

The stained glass and original curved windows were saved, along with the original fir and oak floors and the vintage fireplace mantels and tiles.

“The old building wasn’t all that bad,” Buck remembers. “It had old carpeting, old window treatments, old paint. It just looked like it hadn’t been cared for.”

“But the bones were good and we didn’t have to do any engineering work,” he adds.

Buck credits Heitmann with consistently pushing for top-of-the-line replacement materials and the best and most efficient construction methods, including new custom cedar shakes to reshingle the entire building, state-of-the-art foam insulation and LED lighting, skim coating for interior walls, new copper gutters and flashing and a new cedar roof to replace the old asphalt one. All of the cedar will weather to a cool gray, working well with the new maroon and cream exterior paint job.

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“It was Walter who steered the decisions toward the quality,” Buck says. “Without a guy like Walter, who’s leading that kind of thinking, it probably would not have turned out as well as it did.”

What Heitmann wasn’t able to save he replicated as best he could. “The staircase design is original, but it’s actually all new,” he says. “We made it look old.”

The new bluestone terrace that gracefully wraps around the front and sides of the building used to be a wood deck. “We dug it all out and added a new foundation and basement space,” he says.

The back corner of the building had to be rebuilt. Electronic doors and an elevator were added, and rotten wood in the front turret was replaced. The brick chimneys were all repointed, and a new heating and air conditioning system was installed, with Internet controls. “Most of the heating I can control from my phone,” Heitmann says.

A 40-car parking lot was added, and the grounds around the building have been smartly landscaped with mostly native and deer-resistant plants.

All three nonprofits are excited about the idea of the 30-acre grounds and first-floor and basement rooms being available for public events, such as lecture series, plays and conferences. Already this summer the Hudson Highlands Land Trust has hosted a series of programs, including hikes and four art workshops for children.

Also founded in 1989, the Land Trust now has 1,600 acres in the Hudson Highlands in preservation. It had long ago outgrown its tiny headquarters on Route 9D. “We have four full-time employees, a very dedicated board of 30 and lots of great volunteers,” says MJ Martin, director of outreach and development.

“We love the new space,” she adds. “We feel like Cinderella! I think it’s one of the most successful restorations and retrofits in the Hudson Highlands.”

The Garden Conservancy is also excited about its future here. “What was inviting about this property is that we could actually invite people in and do things with them,” Adezio says. “We couldn’t do that in our old space. Down the road, maybe we’ll have events on the grounds, perhaps with tents.”

And what about the great sledding? Will that continue?

“Absolutely,” Buck says. “We’re very happy to keep that going. That’s the pride of the property.”